Tales of the Wimbriatta

Wimbriatta cannot be found. At least, not with that name. 

An exploration of the life of its author, Frederic J. Davey, reveals clues but not confirmation. Davey was born in the Cornish town of Tuckingmill, an only son with seven sisters, in 1850. [1] After his 20th birthday, he migrated to Auckland in New Zealand on his own to seek work as an architect / draughtsman. The reclamation of Auckland Harbour was underway and offered employment.

New Zealand Herald, 8 March 1871, p.2

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/NZH18710308.2.10

Daily Southern Cross, 13 February 1871, p.1

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DSC18710213.2.2.3

While in Auckland, Davey met his future wife Robinah Hooper, a London-born immigrant who travelled to New Zealand with her family. Her older brother James became an actor and comedian. He appeared at the Theatre Royal, a short-lived theatre north of the Bombay Hills. It is likely that Frederic and Robinah met at the Theatre as six months after his arrival, he launched a play.

Described as a 'new local farce', the play was titled "Potagold's Peep, or Sammy Come Home". One of the jokes centred around the Queen Street sewer. A newspaper of the day referred to it as "The main sewer nuisance". The title of the play was also a puzzle, until I heard the name Samuel Pepys (pronounced Peeps)  mentioned in passing. He was an English diarist who wrote about the state of the London sewerage system in the 17th century. There is no doubt that Davey was a scholar, but he was also unwell. 

With work on the Harbour coming to an end and his health not improving, Davey, his wife, and son Albert migrated to Sydney in July 1877 on the Rotorua. He joined the Colonial Architect's office. 

Australian Town & Country Journal, 14 July 1877, p.31

http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article70607378

But the climate in Sydney was not dissimilar to the climate in Auckland, so after the birth of a daughter, the family moved north to the Tweed River. Davey resumed his architectural career, and was instrumental in designing public buildings in Tweed Heads including pubs and St Cuthbert's church. Another son and two daughters arrived between 1880 and 1888.

Despite this investment in the future, Davey paid a farewell visit to England in 1890 to see his mother Anna and his sisters. This journey may have helped to extend his life. Between 1900 and 1903, a series of articles appeared in the British journal Good Words. They were advertised as "Tales of the Australian bush", and noted in Davey's 1913 obituary as 'Tales of the Wimbriatta". [2]

It is not possible to search in text databases for the word Wimbriatta and find the articles; rather, a search of the author's name is required. So where is the Wimbriatta ? Almost every one of the nine articles detailing life on a river was accompanied by photographs, taken by one F. J. Davey. Some of the photographs include himself. 

The Last Pioneer, Good Words, Dec. 1903, pp.36-42
https://www.proquest.com/britishperiodicals/results/F0A7E4E58CC44A43PQ/

The Wimbriatta is Terranora, on the Tweed River in New South Wales. 

Davey's home at Terranora was known as Mighbyn, pronounced 'Mij-bin', and is most likely a reference to the local palm in the Bundjalung language. [3] Perhaps Wimbriatta will  eventually be located  in the same language. 

The nine articles in Good Words are:

Davey, F. J. (1900). A NEAR THING. Good Words, 41, 188-194.

Davey, F. J. (1900). "ORATOR" EXTON. Good Words, 41, 483-494.

Davey, F. J. (1900). THE CAVE. Good Words, 41, 738-747.

Davey, F. J. (1900). OUR LITTLE ALL. Good Words, 41, 846-852.

Davey, F. J. (1901). NO GREAT CATCH. Good Words, 42, 599-605.

Davey, F. J. (1902). A friend in need. Good Words, 43, 401-408.

Davey, F. J. (1902). A back seat. Good Words, 43, 577-585.

Davey, F. J. (1902). Coo-ee! Good Words, 43, 845-854.

Davey, F. J. (1903). The last pioneer. Good Words, 44, 36-42.



References

[1] English Birth Certificate #204, 11 September 1850, to Thomas Davey and Anna Heynes.

[2] British Periodicals, Good Words, December 1902, p.2; Advertisement. (1902). Good Words, 43, 2. Retrieved from https://www.proquest.com/historical-periodicals/advertisement/docview/3445793/se-2

[3] Ian Fox, email communication, 2016. Other spellings were also used. 

How to be beguiled by a library

Sometimes a story lies hidden, just waiting for discovery. How fortunate we are to be able to solve a mystery in real time, when we start chasing such a story of a life lived publicly, albeit more than a century ago. A Terranora pioneer, Frederic John Davey, moved from Cornwall via Auckland to the Tweed River in the 1870s in an attempt to improve his health.

He was well-known on the Tweed as an architect, a photographer, a farmer, a Justice of the Peace, woodcarver hobbyist and a family man. Trove shares many digitised newspaper articles detailing his life, providing a rich context for research. It should have been no surprise then that one of his obituaries mentioned a previously unknown skill - writer, of both short stories and poetry.

Davey's architectural, photographic, and woodcarving activities were documented by the Tweed Heads Historical Society. Finding his writing proved more difficult, because his obituary* suggested that he wrote for English journals. The intriguing title of the series "Tales from the Wimbriatta" should have made the stories conspicuous in a full-text search, but Trove only revealed a duplicated obituary** (replicated from two other newspapers, now missing***). 

There was no mention of this place name elsewhere in Trove, which leaves an enticing mystery still to be solved. However, the journal title,Good Words, is mentioned. Was it necessary then to search with these two very common words? Trove arranges access to a large number of online journals in its Journals, articles, and datasets zone, and this journal is listed in both microform and digitised form. However, there is no way to search across the journal articles all at once. But an alternate pathway is at hand - a service established before Trove, also online, which can be activated with a little device available to all Australians - an individual National Library card.

Each Australian can arrange to have three - their local library card, their state or territory library card (SL), and their National Library (NL) card. They are needed to access fully digitised resources, known as eresources to encompass different databases hosted by separate publishers. Australian libraries arrange subscriptions to a subset of these databases for their communities, so while there may be some overlap in content, often there isn't. Through its access arrangements, the National Library links to many English journal offerings.

Davey home drawn by F J Davey, 1882

Once you have your NL or SL card, you can sign in and search using the word British to retrieve the British periodicals collection I and II. (Note that the first search will also list the nineteenth century digitised British newspapers collections.) Accept the licence conditions, and then follow the trail to a semi-autobiographical life as described in a home country journal, complete with posed photographs, by searching on the author's name: F J Davey. The photographs themselves are beguiling too - do they show Terranora Lakes where Davey was known to have built his home?

The actions which led to the availability of this journal online in real time reflect a true partnership of minds oriented towards community service, where the owner of the copy, the digitiser, and the reader sit on different continents. It's gratifying to know that decisions made many years ago by forward-thinking librarians in Australia and elsewhere allow us to assuage our curiosity now. 

* This obituary appeared in The Richmond River Herald & Northern Districts Advertiser.
** This obituary appeared in The Northern Star.
*** The Tweed Herald; The Tweed Times. Having complementary copies of such informative obituaries is a small miracle in its own right. F J Davey was such a high achiever that the obituaries appear in newspapers outside the area of his home town and surrounds. Trove illustrated its value yet again. 

Whatever happened to Highfields?

Tweed Heads, Murwillumbah, Cudgen, and many other country towns had one - a Progress Association. But it wasn’t until last year’s discovery of a “recipe book” that the existence of the Highfields District Progress Association was rediscovered.

Highfields District Progress Association

Minute book

A simple school exercise book originally used to record the Association’s meeting minutes was turned into a scrapbook for recipes cut from newspapers and magazines, but thankfully, not all of them were glued in completely and enough of a record remains to confirm the Association’s activity.

Excerpts from the Minutes book are included in this article. They extend frm the years November 1937 to July 1940, although it is not known whether this was when the Association wound up. However, the national web service Trove provides some of the earliest information about this Association, as shown in the newspaper articles included here. [i] 

The Highfield Progress Association was initially established in 1918.[ii] There were immediate issues to contend with which, in fact, had inspired the group to form. The first problem, the road to the Bilambil-Cobaki ferry, was described in the Tweed Daily on 8 January 1918.[iii] This article also explains the intended operation of the group: residents were to meet at a private home, a membership fee of two shillings per year is to be imposed, and issues affecting all residents were to be discussed, but always with the big picture in mind: “The opening up of closer settlement is certain on these coastal slopes. There is a big piece of country – scrub and lantana jungle – within easy reach of Tweed Heads that would make good homes with an assured income, and the Highfield Progress Association is out in the interest of all to assist in the development of their own and kindred areas.”

Before the Second World War, a new advertisement appeared in the Daily News on Tuesday 12 October 1937. 

The name Highfields was well established before the second Progress Association was convened. It was the recipient of spasmodic postal services in the 1920s [iv]. It appeared in NSW Electoral Rolls from 1930 onwards. It was provided as the address for representatives on the Banana Marketing Board [v]; Highfield women formed a sewing and knitting circle during the Second World War [vi], and even the local Council used the name well beyond the 1940s [vii]...

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The full article is included in Issue 114 of The Log Book, the journal of the Tweed Heads Historical Society, and is available for purchase. The Society provided unstinting support in the publishing of this article.

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[i] Trove is at http://trove.nla.gov.au. It contains digitised historical newspapers including The Tweed Daily, trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/title/1007

[ii] 1918 'ROUND THE RIVERS.', Northern Star (Lismore, NSW : 1876      - 1954), 12 January, p. 2,

       http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article92927171

[iii] HIGHFIELD. (1918, January 8). Tweed Daily (Murwillumbah, NSW : 1914 - 1949), p.2, 

       http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article190158543

[iv] LOWER TWEED POSTAL SERVICES. (1920, April 17). Tweed Daily (Murwillumbah, NSW : 1914 -     

      1949), p. 4. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article191379847

[v] BANANA MARKETING Board. (1935, July 18). Tweed Daily (Murwillumbah, NSW : 1914 - 1949),  p.5, http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article194223485

[vi] DONATIONS BY TWEED HEADS RED CROSS BRANCH. (1940, September 18). Tweed Daily (Murwillumbah, NSW : 1914 - 1949), p.5. 

        http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article192924008

[vii] TWEED SHIRE COUNCIL'S WORKS PROGRAMME. (1948, April 15). Tweed Daily (Murwillumbah,  NSW : 1914 - 1949), p. 3. http://nla.gov.au/nla.news-article195502491

From top to bottom

Frank Gehry provided a most succinct justification for his design of the latest University of Technology Sydney building in an ABC interview on 27 February. 

He said: “The 19^th  century buildings hold the city together”. So he chose warm-coloured local bricks for much of the exterior, to tie in with that heritage. It is an extraordinary way to acknowledge a gift which is now often spurned by town planners and developers. 

Inexorably the iconic buildings of self-contained small towns are disappearing under the weight of a lack of foresight and the risk of litigation, where the future of our heritage is put at risk instead. The character, the soul, the icons of childhood are wrapped in time. 

The places which stick in memory and convey a sense of lives past provide the rich texture to our current lives. Rip them out, leaving no trace, and we become soulless, less anchored and ignorant.

 
We can rely on our libraries and museums to fill some of the gap, through their virtual offerings. Hesba Brinsmead's Pastures of the Blue Crane continues to bring the rich tropical physicality of Terranora to life, in both book and video form. Colin Friels still swims at the Snapper Rocks swimming pools in The Coolangatta Gold, dolphins still jump with grace at the Jack Evans Pet Porpoise Pool in the photographs held by the Tweed Heads Historical Society, and Larry Corowa still runs in the Sports Days at Tweed River High School.

But that is not as sensemaking as the submersive physical experience. Coffs Harbour has recognised this as a significant issue recently by supporting two cultural heritage initiatives. The first is a decision by the Coffs Harbour City Council to “relinquish responsibility for the Bunker Cartoon Gallery [back to a] group of enthusiastic volunteers” who belong to a non-profit organisation. “Animated plans for Bunker” [ref: Coffs Coast Advocate, 28 February 2015, p.3.] It’s expected to save some Council budget, so there are generous intentions on both sides to retain a unique heritage for the future.

The second is the instigation of a study of heritage sites with mostly unacknowledged meaning. Not just those that are on a list of Council-supported heritage assets, but a reassurance that our past can still be studied in situ. The study “has identified about 500 additional locally significant items in the Coffs Harbour area, including banana-packing sheds, dairy buildings, timber houses, timber bridges and even fibro holiday shacks... These places may become part of tourist drives, walks, or even festivals, or they might simply be recorded for posterity” [ref: Opinion sought on heritage study, Coffs Coast Advocate, 25 February 2015, p.17]. This choice illustrates empathy for loss.

Do they all have to be maintained by public funds? While there is a volunteer community prepared to support them, yes, although the sums expended do not need to be burdening. Is the volunteer demographic growing larger? Yes. Bernard Salt reports on this continuously. So why squander the good will of a ‘rusted on’ volunteer workforce? Using the time of people generously donated to preserving a part of their contextual history is a key plank of our community wellbeing. I’ve written before about the CSIRO study in which Australia’s senior heritage curators acknowledged the confluence between a passion for heritage and general wellbeing. 

As an alternative, less expensive investment in health infrastructure, historical societies and their interest in built heritage are an unparalleled opportunity to invest in. In addition, the importance of a cross-section of experience and skills to the cultural heritage sector - such as that offered by any volunteering cohort - was acknowledged in a recent British study by key figures such as the British Library’s Chief Executive, Roly Keating.

Smaller towns struggle with the centralisation of budget decisions, regional politics, and infrastructural vacuums. But to ignore resources at hand, with time and expertise, is the ultimate short-sightedness. There are many agencies which recognise the value of and work extensively with volunteer labour forces, but this is not uniformly the case. Just look around your environment and you will know which ones they are.

Smaller towns should take the time to rethink, and use the knowledge of their residents to better understand and appreciate the significant iconic history available to them, while they can. As the Queensland government “restores” the Southern Gold Coast railway line one train station at a time, it knows that it is far costlier to rip out viable heritage and then, several years down the track, put it all back. 

Day-trippers coming off the train from Brisbane, at Tweed Heads station, c. 1916. http://tweedhistory.org.au